The nights had grown colder.
The wind cut through the tents like knives, carrying the smell of smoke and loss. The hospital had moved again — closer to the front, where the sound of artillery never ceased.
Elena had learned to sleep through thunder that wasn't thunder. She had learned to treat wounds that once would have broken her spirit. But she had not learned how to quiet the ache of waiting — the silence between one letter and the next.
It had been three weeks since she last heard from James.
Every morning she checked the messenger's bag. Every night she told herself not to hope. Yet when she lay down, she found herself whispering the same words into the darkness:
"He promised."
One evening, as the nurses finished their rounds, a sudden explosion tore through the outskirts of the camp. The ground shook violently, throwing everyone off balance. Cries filled the air as tents collapsed and lights went out.
"Elena! The storage tent— it's on fire!" Yvette shouted.
Without thinking, Elena grabbed her coat and ran toward the flames. The night glowed red and gold as supplies burned — morphine, bandages, medicine. A soldier was trapped beneath a fallen beam, shouting for help.
"Elena, wait!" one of the orderlies cried, but she didn't stop.
She tore through the smoke, her throat burning, her skirt catching sparks. She dropped to her knees beside the man and tried to lift the beam. It wouldn't budge. Gasping, she called for help, and together they heaved until the soldier was free.
By the time they pulled him out, her hands were raw, her face streaked with soot.
Later, when the fire was finally contained, the commanding officer approached her.
"You could have been killed," he said sternly.
Elena's voice was hoarse, but steady. "So could he."
The officer studied her for a long moment, then nodded. "You have courage, Nurse Moreau. Keep it."
She smiled faintly. "It's not mine, sir. It belongs to someone else."
That night, as the camp quieted, Elena sat alone by the remains of the burnt tent. The stars above were dim through the smoke. From her pocket, she took out James's poem — the one written beneath the willow tree. The paper was creased and fragile, but the words still breathed life into her soul.
She whispered them aloud, her voice trembling.
"When hope is thin and silence fills…"
Her throat closed. Tears welled.
"James," she whispered to the empty air, "if you're out there — if you can hear me — know that I haven't forgotten. I won't."
The wind stirred the ashes around her, and for an instant, she imagined she heard a whisper in return — soft, familiar, like the echo of his promise.
Days later, a letter arrived.
It was damp from rain, the edges torn, but the handwriting was unmistakable. She clutched it to her chest before breaking the seal.
My dearest Elena,
We've been moved north, near Falaise. The fighting here is fierce — I can't say much, only that I am alive and thinking of you. The men speak often of courage. They think it means running toward danger. But I think courage is quieter. I think it looks like a nurse who risks everything for strangers, who believes in promises even when the world is falling apart.
If I make it back, I'll find that willow again. Wait for me there.
Yours — always and beyond reason,
James.
Elena's tears fell onto the page. She smiled through them.
In that moment, courage no longer felt like a heavy thing to carry.
It felt like love — invisible but unbreakable.
That night, she wrote back, her words steady and full of light:
James,
Courage, I've learned, is not the absence of fear. It's the decision to keep loving in spite of it.
Under the willow, I'll wait.
— E.
In the distance, artillery thundered again.
But this time, Elena didn't flinch.
Somewhere out there, under the same wounded sky, a man she loved was whispering her name — and that was enough.